


Roll for Coincidence

by afraidplushappy



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Canon-typical levels of Adam/Blue and Noah/Blue, Characters Play Dungeons & Dragons, F/M, M/M, No Dungeons & Dragons Knowledge Required, No Magic AU, it's not really D&D it's a game I made up that's similar, might add more char and ship tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29915373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afraidplushappy/pseuds/afraidplushappy
Summary: "I'm only playing this game if I get a cool-ass bird familiar.""Ronan, you will have a cool-ass bird familiar when or if I decide you’ve earned one."...Blue gets sent to the raven boys' booth at Nino's to tell them they can't play "Cabeswater's Heroes" there for hours every Friday if they don't order more food. Or at least some iced tea. (Magic isn't real and Glendower exists solely in their tabletop roleplaying campaign — Noah is gamemaster.)
Relationships: Adam Parrish/Blue Sargent, Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Noah Czerny/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Roll for Coincidence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse for the edits and the title!

"Why can't you do it?" Blue asked Cialina.

"Because you're good with people."

Blue scoffed, offended. "I am not good with raven boys."

Cialina laughed and peeked her head around the corner, peering into the restaurant. "Raven boys are people, too."

"Just barely.”

The girls were standing in the kitchen. It was late into their shifts and although their Nino's waitressing uniforms still looked clean, Blue knew they both smelled like pizza dough and garlic. The sun had long since set outside, leaving the restaurant lit mostly by dusty orange lamps hanging above tables and neon signs in the front window. The glow of the sad arcade in the side room illuminated Blue and Cialina's predicament.

"Come on," Cialina's uncle called from the kitchen. "We're going to need that table soon."

Next to the humming arcade room, in the corner booth with the flickering light that none of the managers ever bothered to fix, four strange boys hunched over piles of papers and books. They were playing some sort of game with dice — not that Blue had ever seen a game played with quite so many dice, and oddly-shaped ones at that.

Cialina pushed Blue out into the restaurant and she realized there was no more arguing. She'd gotten away with avoiding their table too long.

Aside from their crested sweaters, the boys didn't look very menacing. As Blue drew nearer, she saw that their books had pictures of delightfully magic-looking monsters on them. She kept herself from asking about them and instead cleared her throat as she approached the table.

All four boys looked up at once. One pale, one tan, one tall, one with glasses. She took this inventory of them and then said politely, "Excuse me, but we're about to have a big rush and we'd really appreciate it if we could free up this booth."

They all blinked at her like she had pulled them out of a particularly riveting novel and they were having trouble adjusting to the real world again.

Then the glasses-wearing one threw a friendly smile up at her. "But isn't dinnertime over?"

"It's Friday," Blue explained. "People like to wander in here late on Fridays."

"Can't imagine why," muttered the tall one in the corner with the shaved head, eyes still focused on his hand in front of him. He was rolling a die between his thumb and forefinger. His wrist was weighed down by a dozen leather bracelets, some of which looked suspiciously chewed upon. Blue almost gagged.

She shifted her eyes back to the Glasses boy when he nudged his callous friend and said, "Ronan, please." Then, to Blue, "We're in the middle of something — could we pay to keep the table?"

The tan boy in the corner opposite Ronan suddenly became very interested in the papers in front of him. His long fingers started curling and uncurling the edge of some worksheet.

Blue blinked at the Glasses boy. "The booth's not really something you can rent."

The pale one snorted with laughter and tried to hide it by wiping his hand over his face. He left an ink smudge across his cheek and Blue saw the notes in front of him, hidden from the others by a propped-up book, were smeared across the page to the point of illegibility.

Blue ignored him. "You pay for the table by eating here," she said, knowing full well that her voice was starting to get tight. "Can I get y'all any more food?"

Glasses boy's eyebrows furrowed. "We're not hungry."

The pale smudgy one snorted again and didn't try to cover it up this time. He kicked Glasses boy under the table and looked up at Blue. Through his crazed grin, he asked, "What about just — like — some ice tea? Four iced teas? Yeah, yeah, Parrish, don't freak, I'll pay for it." And finally to Blue, "Is that enough to cover rent?"

Blue only gave a curt nod before walking off.

...

"What did you do to those poor boys?" Cialina cooed, cradling her cigarette.

They stood on the back steps of Nino's under the porchlight by the door. The railing separating the girls from the back of the parking lot was old and rusted, the black paint peeling in places. Across the lot, a raccoon or possum or some other furry creature rummaged around in the huge green dumpster.

"What did I do!" Blue huffed. She almost stopped to narrate the whole interaction to Cialina so they could have a good laugh about it, which could always cure Blue of her sour mood after speaking to anyone extremely stupid or extremely wealthy. Or stupidly wealthy. But before she could, one of the boys appeared in front of them.

It was the elegant one with the dusty hair. The one with the nervous hands. His chin came up just past the railing of the back stoop and he didn't bother to come around the steps. He said, "Excuse me, uh, miss?"

Blue was struck by how obviously not-stupid and not-wealthy this raven boy sounded. Intrigued, she said, "Yes?"

"I'm sorry to bother you on your break. I just wanted to say I'm sorry about my friends. I should have said something before you walked off."

Cialina, apparently just as impressed as Blue felt, held out her cigarette to the boy.

For a frightful moment, Blue thought he might accept it, but he just shook his head softly, lips pursed. Cialina shrugged and went back to sucking on it herself.

Blue stepped closer to the railing and looked down at him. "I've dealt with worse."

"Doesn't make it any better."

Blue realized he was blinking into the blazing light behind her head. She circled the railing and hopped off the steps to join the not-so-raven boy on the pavement. Cialina retreated a little but Blue knew she was absolutely still within listening distance.

Blue asked, "What's your name?"

"Adam."

"I appreciate your apology, Adam," she said, voice as soft as she thought the name required. "I'm Blue."

"Blue," he said. It was a full sentence. Then, "Nice name."

"Thanks," she said reflexively, "it was a birthday present."

Adam took two beats to get it, but then his face cracked into a smile. "That's a good one."

Blue gave her head a little shake. It was her standard response. She hadn't meant to use it on him. She might have been blushing a little. Out of the corner of her eye, Cialina disappeared back inside Nino's.

Quickly, Blue asked, "What game were you playing in there? With the dice?"

Now Adam blushed. "It's called _Heroes of Cabeswater_."

"I've heard of it," Blue said, because she had, but that was the only thing she had to say about it.

Adam seemed to calculate his words before speaking them. "It's a fantasy tabletop role-playing game." When he realized this meant nothing to Blue, he said, "We make up characters and go on adventures."

Blue considered this. "It takes three hours to finish a game?"

"We've been playing this campaign for weeks now."

Blue's mouth fell open.

Adam said, "It's a good game — the creators have made billions since the seventies. There's a lot of strategy involved, and..."

Adam cut himself off, but Blue just kept looking at him, waiting to hear more. "Go on."

"There's not much else to it."

"It looked complicated, from what I saw."

This was when Adam must have realized she was actually interested. "You could sit with us sometime and watch. When you're not working, I mean."

"Sit with you and your friends?"

Adam pursed and unpursed his lips again. "Only if you wanted. Only if you wanted to see the game."

A car roared to life around the corner of the building and a gruff voice called, "Parrish, you out here?"

Adam looked disappointed, but he said to Blue, "They're not so bad. Just stupid sometimes."

"Okay."

"What?"

"Okay. Maybe I will. Watch you play, I mean." Her curiosity, both for the game and for Adam's friends, had won out.

Adam smiled his cracked smile again as Blue wrote the bookstore's number on a page in her Nino's server notepad and tore it out for Adam.

 _"Adam,"_ a sing-song voice called from far off.

"See you," Blue said to him.

"Goodnight, Blue," he replied.

...

Blue let herself into the Fox Way Bookstore and locked the front door behind her. She could have gone up the rickety wooden steps along the outside of the building to get to the upstairs apartments, but she wanted to be in the reading room.

It was an open room that sprouted off the main shop area. There were big armchairs and an overstuffed loveseat spread around the room. A squat coffee table piled high with novels stood in the middle of the fluffy carpet. Old paintings from clashing eras covered the walls, hanging crooked on their nails. There was an old fireplace along one wall, too, but it was never lit during store hours. The fireplace was reserved for special occasions, like when Blue's mother Maura held one of their impromptu book club meetings with her friends Persephone and Calla. Blue had been to the book club meetings and could attest to the fact they were more about the wine than the literature.

Blue had gone straight from school to work that evening, forced to change into uniform in Nino's disgusting bathroom. Now, she threw her backpack into one armchair and dropped herself into another. She sunk down, chin tucked to her chest. Blue had fallen asleep like this before and woken in the morning to terrible neck pain. She took a moment before pulling herself upright again. She took a deep breath and smelled all the stale pizza smells of Nino's, knowing she'd have to shower to expel it entirely. She did not like working there, but she made good money from tips and she didn't need much anyway. She wasn't one of those teens who needed _stuff_. She didn't have a phone or her own computer. Although it would make doing homework much easier, she managed without these things just fine. Most _things_ that she wanted she could make for herself anyway. Clothing, jewelry, decorations, fun. These were things Blue had learned to craft all by herself. Most of the time she was proud of this commitment; some of the time she felt very alone.

She didn't just work at Nino's, either. She walked dogs. She gardened for people. She sold friendship bracelets and purses made out of soda can tabs at the Henrietta Craft Fair every summer. Sometimes, if she was lucky, her aunts would even pay Blue to babysit her little cousins. But none of these were jobs she could see herself doing forever. What she really wanted to do was go on adventures, hopefully with friends. She wanted to see things and meet people and save endangered animals and — though she would only admit this to herself — get up to mischief along the way. Blue was starting to see the appeal of Adam's game he shared with his friends, adventuring in magical worlds, stepping away from reality, even if it was just for three hours out of the week. Blue really hoped Adam would call the bookstore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I consume comments for power. Chapter 2 will be here next Sunday so don't forget to scroll up and hit subscribe.


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